How Mexico Lost Texas to the US
- Angel Bermúdez (@angelbermudez)
- BBC News World
In the 1820s, thousands of American settlers settled in Texas with the approval and encouragement of Mexico.
It was a wound, in part self-imposed, that left a lasting trauma to Mexico's national pride.
The loss of Texas in 1836 and the inability of the Mexican government to reconquer that territory in the years prior to its integration with the United States, which took place in 1845, are still felt in the country.
"This is something that has since affected Mexicans' sense of identity and fueled Mexican nationalism," says historian Miguel González Quiroga, a former professor at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León and currently a visiting researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
This territorial expropriation, however, was in part a consequence of an inescapable demographic reality: for every Mexican residing in that territory, there were about 10 settlers of American origin.
End of Maybe interest you tooQuite the contrary: they settled there with the permission of the Mexican government, which also deliberately attracted them using a generous land transfer policy as an incentive.
"Without a doubt, the loss of Texas was a case of unintended consequences," Greg Cantrell, a professor of history at Texas Christian University, tells BBC News Mundo, the BBC's Spanish-language news service.
The initiative to create Anglo-American colonies in Texas emerged at the end of Spanish rule over Mexico, but it only materialized after that country's independence.
In the early 19th century, religious missions were the main institutions present in Texas.
Looking back, this decision seems difficult to explain, not only because of the negative consequences for Mexico, but also because US citizens had tried to invade foreign territories militarily at their own risk.
"It is incomprehensible that after the obstructive invasions and expansionism of the neighboring country, the Spanish and Mexican governments agreed to allow the settlement of American settlers (in Texas)," says Mexican historian Josefina Zoraida Vázquez.
But why did Mexico do this?
It all started with the so-called "Austin 300".
land as an incentive
The establishment of American settlers in Texas began in the 1820s and was driven by Moses Austin, an American who in the 1790s emigrated to southwestern Missouri, then part of Spanish Louisiana.
Access to cheap land in Texas was a big incentive for settlers; above, land certificate issued by Stephen Austin
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Moses managed to prosper there and even obtained a Spanish passport, but his luck would change after the Louisiana sale from France to the US was finalized in 1803.
"It was not a blessing for him to hear that, with the Louisiana Purchase, the territory became American. Affected by the war of 1812 and the ups and downs of the economy, by 1819 Moses was bankrupt. in Spanish Louisiana, he decided to emigrate to Texas and apply for a concession to settle with 300 families", wrote Vázquez in the book Mexico and American Expansionism .
In January 1821, Moses obtained authorization from the Spanish authorities to create that colony in Texas, but died shortly afterwards, so the task was left to his son Stephen F. Austin, known in the United States as "the father of Texas".
Stephen decided to continue his father's plans and moved to San Antonio to try to convince the Spanish authorities whether he could continue his father's enterprise.
"Austin walked into San Antonio, literally, the same day the news about Mexico's independence came in, so he was told to travel to Mexico City to present his petition to the new national authorities," says Cantrell.
There he stayed for a year, during which he learned to speak Spanish, while doing his business and waiting for his answers.
In addition to getting Mexico to allow him to carry out his father's project, Austin would later get the passage of a new law that created the system of entrepreneurs, the name given to those who established authorized colonies in Texas and who would be rewarded with land: the more settlers there were, the more land they would receive.
recruiting settlers
To obtain authorization from the Mexican government, Austin had to agree that the settlers would swear loyalty to Mexico, learn Spanish, and convert to Catholicism.
Stephen F. Austin is considered "the father of Texas"
Not all of these requirements, however, were strictly fulfilled.
"The uncomfortable parts of these rules were largely ignored, particularly with regard to Catholicism. This was never substantially enforced. The vast majority of settlers were not Catholic and never converted. Some of them even stopped at the last Catholic church in Louisiana. , before crossing into Texas, and they were baptized, but most of them didn't even care," says Cantrell.
"The Mexican authorities and Austin had a kind of pact of silence: as long as you didn't get in trouble for religious reasons, conducting public religious services in Protestant temples or criticizing the rule that forced you to become a Catholic, it was okay," he adds. .
Between 1821 and 1823, Austin published advertisements in the southern United States looking for families interested in settling in their colony.
The main attraction? The possibility of obtaining large amounts of land at a price equivalent to one-tenth of what it cost in the United States.
The colonization law established that farmers would receive about 0.7 square kilometers of land, while ranchers would receive almost 18 square kilometers, which made most settlers pass themselves off as farmers, even if they were not.
As if that were not enough, families had the possibility to bring or have slaves.
This was an element that would prove fundamental both for the establishment of the colonies and for the evolution of the political situation in Texas.
With this enticing offer, it didn't take Austin long to round up his settlers. In fact, he was able to choose among the candidates and favored those who were better off economically and socially.
In the late summer of 1824, most of the first 300 authorized families were in Texas (hence they are known as the Austin 300), although in reality there were 297, as some families received more than one authorization).
Rebuilding the US South in Northern Mexico
Most of Austin's 300 families came from southern states, especially Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri.
Texas map drawn by Stephen Austin in 1822
Only a small part of these families brought slaves and, among them, most had only two or three. However, slavery was a central element of the colonization of Texas.
"Having slaves was something that only the rich could afford, but almost all settlers aspired to have them because that was the path to success in the cotton world," explains Greg Cantrell to BBC News Mundo.
Cantrell points out that while most settlers initially engaged in subsistence agriculture, the goal was to replicate the economic boom in cotton plantations that had made the southern United States one of the richest places in the world.
"Everyone thought that if they could recreate Mississippi in Mexico, they would one day be rich. That was their true calculation. good profit for that", explains Cantrell.
"No one could cultivate that much land. Not even the colonist who had the most slaves could sow more than a fraction of that 4,428 acres (about 18 square kilometers). But Austin's 300 and many thousands were driven by greed," he adds.
Close to slavery, far from Mexico City
After bringing in the first 300 families, Stephen Austin received authorization from the Mexican authorities to found four more colonies. In all, he brought about 1,000 families to Texas.
Colonists established slave-operated cotton plantations in Texas. This image dates from 1930, when slavery had already been abolished.
At a rapid pace, new colonies were also established, promoted by other entrepreneurs.
It wouldn't take long for the first tensions to arise with the Mexico City authorities.
The Anglo-American settlers bet that Texas would become a state with broad autonomy within the framework of a federal Mexico, but they were unsuccessful and were integrated into the same state along with Coahuila.
This autonomy was seen as the key to protecting their way of life.
"If Texas had achieved a kind of autonomy that would have allowed them to maintain slavery and trade with whomever they wanted, without tariffs or restrictions; if they could mind their own business as a State of Mexico, then that would have been for the colonists the best of all worlds", argues Cantrell.
But this was not the real situation.
"Mexico had been an anti-slavery country practically since 1820, so Mexico City officials didn't quite understand that the grand plan to make Texas a thriving territory was to become part of that thriving cotton economy, from which great fortunes were created. But that could only happen where slavery was allowed," he adds.
Starting in 1821, the Mexican authorities made several attempts to definitively eradicate slavery in that country and in Texas, which generated great concern among Anglo-American settlers, who on several occasions managed to circumvent these measures by exempting themselves or inventing new figures such as that of "unpaid employees" who were bound by lifetime employment contracts.
Break
Tensions between Anglo-American settlers and the government of Mexico would notably increase after 1830, when the Mexican government passed a law that prohibited further immigration to Texas.
Santa Anna's centralist turn for the Mexican government accelerated the break with the Anglo-American settlers
The rule was based on the recommendations of General José Manuel Mier y Terán, who after touring Texas was alarmed to discover that the number of settlers far exceeded that of Mexicans, so he recommended closing the borders of that state to Americans. , promote the arrival of more European and Mexican population and ban slavery, among other measures.
Measures of this type were a cause for protest and concern among the settlers who, since at least 1826, had been promoting intermittent revolts against the Mexican state.
Tensions, however, began to wane in 1834, after President Antonio López de Santa Anna dissolved Congress and ended the federal structure to establish a centralist government in Mexico.
"When he (Santa Anna) announced that he would march an army into Texas to end the growing riots, Anglo-Texas realized they were facing their most feared scenario because slavery would not survive Santa Anna's rule. everybody got excited about the secession movement," says Cantrell.
The historian claims that, until relatively recently, in Texas history, the role that slavery played in the separation from Mexico was minimized, but he maintains that it was a crucial element.
"They knew they couldn't publicly announce that they were worried about the continuation of slavery and because of that they were going to declare independence. They knew they would give a bad image by saying that their revolution sought to preserve slavery, but everyone knew that was an elephant. in the room, which no one wanted to talk about. But it was, in fact, an extremely important factor (for the secession)," he explains.
The confrontation between Santa Anna's forces and Anglo-American settlers would last a few months and would end in the Battle of San Jacinto, in April 1836, after which the separation of Texas from Mexico was completed.
Santa Anna's troops defeated the settlers at the Battle of the Alamo
Dodging the inevitable
But why did Spain first and Mexico later believe that it would be a good idea to allow the establishment of Anglo-American colonies in Texas?
"Mexico found itself in the need to populate its northern territories because these were under threat from the Spanish empire, the French empire and the new country that had been formed (the United States), but it did not have enough resources or people to colonize them", explains Quiroga.
He also points out that these territories were under constant threat from native tribes, especially the Comanches, so populating them was also a way of protecting them from these attacks.
Although he emphasizes that most settlers were peaceful and maintained good relations with Mexico, the historian recognizes that the demographic weight they reached in Texas played a decisive role in their separation. When the Mexicans realized this, it was too late, adds Quiroga.
One of the families that were part of the Austin 300
Greg Cantrell, in turn, considers that the decision to allow the establishment of settlers in Texas was a measure with which Mexico tried to avoid the loss of that territory, trying to exert some control over a process that seemed inevitable given the rapid expansion of the States. United.
"The question was, do we have this fertile region on the border with the United States and can we lose it to illegal immigrants who, once they are big enough, will want to separate from Mexico, or can we allow in American settlers who will be controlled and that they will be loyal to the government as long as they are under the watchful eye of entrepreneurs like Stephen Austin," he says.
"They saw the presence of Americans in Texas as a lesser evil. But there was no alternative: they would be illegal or legal", he adds.
In any case, the result turned out to be the same as feared.
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